A/N: Hey everyone, sorry for the little wait for this chapter and apologies for any spelling and grammar errors that might have slipped through the net. Enjoy!
On the first day Ruby just slept the whole time. The only times she was awake was when her father woke her up to make sure that she had something to eat and so that she could take her meds. He had been staying with her while she ate, and then for an hour or so once she had fallen back to sleep. Her fever was still pretty bad, and although he was trying to work, his mid kept drifting back to his daughter.
By the second day, she still wasn't much better. She was even more groggy than she had been, and that just made her even more stubborn. Tony had found out what the doctor meant about making sure that his daughter actually took her tablets. JARVIS had caught her pretending to throw them into her mouth, before hiding them under the covers of her bed. Now he was keeping a closer eye on her, making her show him that they were actually in her mouth. He had never expected her to be so difficult.
The third day was probably the worse for both of them. It was around four in the morning when Tony rushed into her room after JARVIS had woken him, finding his daughter curled up on the bathroom floor, shivering madly after having thrown up. Although she was shivering, moaning that she was cold, her skin was still burning. The day didn't progress any better. Ruby was sweating, but still moaning she was cold, and then she was rambling, and Tony couldn't understand anything that she was saying. Pepper had even suggested calling Doctor Peterson, seeing if she could come and take another look at her, but Tony protested.
Tony was relieved when on the fourth day her fever finally broke. Ruby had been sleeping all day, and rather peacefully for once as well. It was late in the afternoon when Tony went to check on her and found that her temperature was finally retuning back to a more acceptable level. She couldn't remember anything about the day before, nothing that she said, or the fact that she had been throwing up all over the bathroom.
Day five meant that Tony was a little less worried. Ruby was awake, and starting to feel much better. With that off his mind, he had managed to get back to work on the armour and had even done a few more tests. He had worked out that he could use the thrusters in the boots to basically fly, he just needed to figure out how to control it better so that he doesn't destroy anything with it.
"JARVIS, how's Ruby doing?" He called, as several of his little robot helpers fixed the new suit to his body.
"I believe she is about to fall asleep sir. She has been trying to read for the past hour or so, but seems to be finding it difficult. She keeps rubbing her eyes and losing focus on what she is doing." JARVIS told him, having been keeping a check on her and asking her if everything was all right. Of course, she said that everything was fine, like she usually did.
Tony was glad that she had been up for a few hours, even if she had been struggling to concentrate on anything. "Okay, just keep an eye on her." He said, before finally putting on the last piece of the suit, the faceplate. "JARVIS, are you there?" Screens appeared before Tony's eyes inside the suit.
"At your service, Sir." His AI called into his ear.
"Engage Heads Up Display."
"Check."
"Import all preferences from home interface." Tony said, now looking around his workshop, everything coming through on his display, with additional information as well.
"Will do, Sir." JARVIS called back.
Tony knew he was probably going to get in trouble with Ruby for getting so far ahead, but he wanted to get things done, he wanted to be able to protect her. "All right, what do you say?" He called to his AI.
"I have indeed been uploaded, Sir. We're online and ready."
"Can we start the virtual walk-around?" Tony asked, still looking around at everything while JARVIS starting importing the preference and calibrated the virtual environment. "Do a check on control surfaces." So far, he was rather happy with how everything was going.
"As you wish, Sir." Different parts of the suit started moving, JARVIS testing them and making sure that everything was working how it should. "Test complete. Preparing to power down and begin diagnostics." The AI announced.
However, Tony wasn't ready to take the suit off just yet. "Er, yeah. Tell you what. Do a weather and ATC check. Start listening in on ground control." He knew he was definitely going to get into trouble for this one when Ruby found out, if Ruby found out.
"Sir, there are still terabytes of calculates needed before an actual flight is…"
"JARVIS!" Tony called, getting his AI to shut up. "Sometimes you got to run before you can walk. Ready? In three, two one." The thrusters came to life and he hovered above the floor, before zooming out of the mansion and up into the night sky.
As Tony blasted off into the sky, Ruby wasn't as asleep as he had thought. She had been dozing off, about to fall asleep, but a phone call brought her back to her senses. "Hello?" She said groggily, actually holding her phone to her ear for once and not using SWAIN.
"Ruby, it's Maggie. I was just calling to check how you were doing." She let out a groan, hearing the voice of her doctor.
"I'm fine. Fever's gone. Nausea's gone. Nothing to worry about." Ruby told her, not really in the mood to have a little chat with anyone.
"And the headaches? You have been taking your medication I hope?" It was clear that Ruby was going to have to answer all her questions, otherwise she was never going to leave her alone.
"Head is okay. And yes I have been taking my meds. If you don't believe me, call my dad and ask him. Is there anything else that you wanted? Because I was actually asleep when you decided to wake me up." Yes, she was grumpy. She still wasn't completely over being sick and she was getting frustrated with being stuck in her room the whole time.
There was silence on the other end of the line for a few moments. "Expect a call from Director Fury, I believe he wants to have a few words with you."
Ruby let out a groan. The last thing she needed was to have Fury on her ass for something now as well. "Fine, anything else?"
"Look after yourself, Ruby. I'll talk to you again soon." The woman said, before the call was ended.
She threw herself back down on her pillow, a sigh slipping past her lips as she did. She was absolutely fed up now. Ruby had tried to do things to keep herself occupied, such as reading, but her eyes just would not focus on the words on the page. The sick teen knew exactly what she had to do, even though she really didn't want to.
Her hand slipped under her pillow and pulled out the small rectangular box that her doctor had given her. "I'm going to kill you, Robin, I am really going to kill you." She said, glaring at the thing in her hand.
She opened the box, and glared at the contents even more. One thing that Ruby really hated was the contents of that box, and eventually she would find a way around it and to make sure it disappeared forever.
A while later and Ruby was finally settled and reading. She was going through some of the things that Fury had sent her, and that she had pulled up the screens in her room. Lucky for her, JARVIS seemed too busy to notice anything that she was doing, he was being awfully quiet.
It still annoyed her that more weapons had been found, and she had no idea how they had managed to get there. She had looked as far as she could, without getting into trouble with her father, into the shipments that were going out from the company. Everything was still coming up blank, and it was driving her crazy.
But her reading and research was disturbed when she heard an almighty crash, followed by another one, and then a third. She didn't hesitate to grab her baseball bat and charge out of her room, not caring she was in her pyjamas and the fact that she was meant to stay in bed.
Ruby made it to the living room, and saw a massive hole in the ceiling, the night sky clearly visible up above. When she looked at the room, she noticed a hole where the piano used to be. Without even thinking about it, she charged down the stairs and to the workshop, determined to find the source of the damage to her father's home.
What she saw down there was not exactly what she was expecting. Her father was lying on one of his cars in the suit they had been working on, Dummy spraying him with a fire extinguisher. "What the hell do you think you are doing?" She shouted at him, still holding the baseball bat tightly in her hands. She had expected to find something a little more dangerous than her father.
Tony let out a groan, the cloud that came from the fire extinguisher starting to clear. The first thing he saw was a young woman standing there, holding a baseball bat and wearing a pair of black framed glasses. "Jas?" He said, slightly confused.
"No, it's Ruby, you idiot." She growled at him, storming over to where he was, still motionless on top of his car. "What the hell are you playing at? You said you were working on it some more, testing and stuff, the suit is no where near ready for a test flight." Ruby shouted at him. "How can you be so stupid?"
"Okay, Dummy, enough. I'm not on fire, you can stop." Tony said, trying to get himself out of the smashed car.
"No, Dummy, keep it going." Ruby growled, clearly not in a good mood. "It's his own fault, for testing it when he really shouldn't have."
It was a struggle, but Tony managed to get himself up, but only just. "Ruby, calm down. Dummy, turn it on her, she needs to cool off." The robot went to spray Ruby, but thought better of it and just turned it off all together. Dummy shook the extinguisher a few times, acting like it had finally ran out. "What do you think you're doing out of bed?"
Ruby couldn't help but laugh at him and his absurd question. "Seriously? I think the whole of Malibu heard you smashing through the roof, all the way down to the garage." Her grip on the baseball bat hadn't loosened, if anything, she was holding it tighter than before.
He yanked at the faceplate, eventually pulling it off so that he could see his daughter properly. "I'm sorry, honey. I got caught up in the moment, but if it helps, you're right." Ruby raised an eyebrow at her. "There is a lot of work that still needs to be done, wasn't completely ready for a test flight."
"You're still an idiot." Ruby told him, before going and sitting down at her desk, taking her bat with her. She was not happy with him, not one little bit.
With a heavy sigh, Tony pulled himself together properly, and the robots started to disassemble the suit and take it off him. The whole time they were working, he was just watching his daughter, and wondering when the hell she got glasses.
He couldn't believe what he was seeing when she had first came into his sight, she had looked the spitting image of her mother, including the baseball bat. Jasmine always kept a baseball bat to hand, not because she played at all, but because it was great as a weapon when she was on her own. There had been many times when Jasmine had threatened Tony with a baseball bat, especially nearer the end where he would come home from work late and drunk.
Eventually he was freed from the suit, and he marched straight over to his daughter. "You, bed, now." He told her firmly. She just sat there and ignored him, the data from the flight up on her screen. "Ruby, go back to bed."
"Why? So you can go and do some more stupid tests that could get you killed?" She growled at him. "You just don't think, do you? You just don't use that stupid head of yours."
"Hey, come on, I said I was sorry, what else do you want me to say?" Tony just didn't understand why she was so upset with him. He had taken the suit out for a test flight on the spur of the moment, and he had made it back without too much damage done.
Ruby finally turned and glared at her father, the same glare her mother used to give her. "I want you to promise that you are not going to do something stupid like that again. I want to know that you're not going to randomly go off at some point and get into trouble. I want you to always come home."
Now he understood, he knew what was bothering her so much now. "Ruby, honey, I'm always going to come home. How can I not when I got you? I promise, I'm not going to leave you, I'm not going to just abandon you."
"Yeah? And what if something happens? Can you promise me that nothing is going to happen and that you will always come back? You are the only family I have left. I don't… I wouldn't be able to handle it if something happened to you." Ruby was scared, scared that something was going to happen to him, to stop him from coming home, to take him away from her. She had lost her mother, and losing her father really would be the breaking point for her.
Tony let out a sigh as he saw how distressed his daughter was getting. She was meant to be in bed, resting, and not stressing over anything. And yet there she was, in the workshop, stressing. "Listen to me, I promise that I will be careful, and from now on I will consult you before I go and do anything stupid or reckless. Okay?" His daughter continued to glare at him. "Okay, seriously, either stop glaring at me or take off those glasses. When did you even get glasses?" He asked her, reaching out and taking them off her face.
She instantly snatched them back. "This pair, about a year ago. Started wearing them when I was fourteen." Ruby told him, putting them safely on the to of her head. "More for headaches, eye strain, stuff like that."
"So why haven't you been wearing them, then?" Her father asked, a frown upon his face. He remembered all those times that Jasmine would be sitting at her desk, working away, her glasses perched on her nose.
"Because I haven't wanted to." Ruby grumbled. If it weren't for a certain person and a certain doctor, she still wouldn't have them and would definitely not have to wear them. "Thought I had lost them, apparently I hadn't."
That was when it twigged. "Doctor Peterson had them, didn't she? That was what she gave you, wasn't it?" Ruby simply glared at him. "How is your head? Because mine is pounding."
Letting out a sigh, Ruby pushed herself away from her desk and over to the freezer that was tucked away in the workshop. "Yeah, well it's your own fault. If you are so determined to do such stupid things, then you're going to get no sympathy from me at all. Ever." It was plain to see that she was still really annoyed with him.
"Wow, you really know how to hold a grudge, don't you?" Tony called to his daughter, watching her pull an ice pack out from the freezer. "That's because of how stubborn you are, you get that from your mother." The next thing he knew, the ice pack was flying towards him. He didn't have enough time to dodge it completely and it ended up catching him in the chest.
"Don't you dare talk about my mom right now." Ruby hissed at him, before storming back over to her desk and sitting down.
Her father held the ice pack on his head as he slowly made his way over to his daughter. As he did, he pasted the table where Pepper had placed down a parcel the night that Obadiah had arrived and told him the board wanted to lock him out. There was a sticky note on the top of it, reading 'From your daughter'.
Tony glanced over at Ruby and noticed that she was still just staring at the screen, without her glasses on. His attention was drawn back to the brown paper wrapped package and he slowly begun to unwrap it. There was a frown on his face as he did, having no idea what Ruby could have gotten him or why.
What he found was not what he was expecting, and it caused a pain in his chest. Enclosed in a glass box was the Arc Reactor that the pair of them had made in the cave, the one that he had told Pepper to destroy. But that wasn't all, it was the words that had been engraved around it that really got to him. His eyes were actually getting a little watery from what he was seeing.
"Tony Stark's second heart, because one wasn't enough." He mumbled, reading it over again and again. He was absolutely shocked that she had made sure it was kept, even more shocked that she had given it to him in a glass container, but even more stunned with the words she had on there.
He didn't say a word as he walked over to his daughter and put it down on the desk in front of her. Immediately she sat up straight and looked at the glass container that had been placed on her desk. "Oh… uh, Pepper gave it to you then?" Ruby asked him meekly. She had actually forgotten all about it, because she had so much else going on, what with trying to find out how terrorists were getting their weapons and being sick.
"Yeah, she brought it down that night when you had a fever and were throwing up everywhere." He told her, having a vague recollection of when that brown parcel had arrived in his workshop. "But I've only just opened it. When did you do this?"
"Uh, a while ago. Pepper helped me out, I knew what I wanted done, but I didn't know about getting it all sorted, if you know what I mean?" Ruby wasn't being very clear, because she really didn't know how to explain herself. Pepper had left it for her in her room, not knowing if she would have wanted it or not, but Ruby had a better idea. It was the first thing she had ever worked on with her father, the thing they made to keep him alive. The truth was, it meant a lot to her, and she was upset that he was ready to just discard it.
Tony could see that she was being a little closed off, and he worried that pressing the matter more was going to do more harm than good. "So, be honest with me, how you really feeling now?" He ended up asking her, leaning against her desk.
"Better. Mag… I mean, doctor Peterson said I only had to stay in bed until the fever had broken. Well, fever has gone now." Ruby told him. "And this thing about no stress? Yeah, you're doing a really good job at that, aren't you?"
He knew that she had a point, he had caused her to stress out even more, and there was no need for it at all. "Come on, time to forgive your old man. You know I never meant to worry you, to get you all stressed."
Ruby scoffed at him a little. "Going to take more than that to make it up to me. You didn't just stress me out, you scared the hell out of me. Again." She wasn't going to forgive him that easily, she was really going to make him work for it now.
Tony let out a sigh, knowing that it was going to be a tough job getting into her good books again. His daughter really was as stubborn as her mother, and he was really starting to understand how much Jasmine had to deal with from their daughter. "Well, I've told you that I'm sorry, I don't know what else you want from me, Ruby."
"I want you to understand that you have other responsibilities." Ruby was definitely still angry with him, he could hear it in her voice. "Yeah, the suit is important, finding out what's going on with the company is important, but those aren't the only things in your life."
He knew what she was getting at, and he knew that she was right as well. "Okay, come on, time to make a deal." Tony announced, kneeling down next to where Ruby was still moping. "From now on, anything to do with the suit, we do together. I consult you first before I go and do something stupid. But, you have to do something as well. You need to start taking things easy, honey. Stop with all this obsessive search for evidence of who is doing what. Just calm down, okay, Ruby?"
"Dad, I'm not obsessed…"
"Yes, you are. Tell me, when was the last time you actually left the house?" Tony asked his daughter, already knowing the answer. "I know that is what you spend all your time doing, I've had confirmation from not only JARVIS, but SAWIN as well. So, what do you say?"
"I'm just trying to find out what's going on, that's all. Someone is destroying everything you have ever worked for, and in the process, they are destroying your reputation." Ruby told him, trying to defend herself and everything she had been trying to do. "Someone out there tried to kill you, and they tried to kill me. I'm not going to just let this drop."
"Ruby, honey, I'm not telling you to let it drop. I'm saying that you need to let it go a little. This whole thing is destroying you, this is what is making you sick, causing all of this stress." He had seen how it had taken its toll on her, and it was just going to get worse unless he done something about it. "We're both dealing with this in different ways, but we need to work together on this, otherwise things will only get worse. So, deal?"
Ruby just glared at the screen, making sure to avoid looking at her father. She wasn't impressed with what he was proposing, but she knew that really she didn't have any other choice. She didn't want him to go off and do stupid things, especially if it involved the suit. "Fine." She eventually grumbled.
"Great. So, want to go over this test flight and see how it went?" Tony was trying to encourage her to stop sulking, and do something productive with him. If she had to be out of bed, then he wanted her to be with him.
With a heavy sigh, Ruby shoved her chair away from her desk, rolling over towards her father's instead. She looked up and saw him still standing there, looking at her. "Well? Come on then." She was going to keep on being grumpy for a little while longer, because she still hadn't completely forgiven her father for what he decided to do.
Eventually Tony sat down at his desk, an ice pack on his shoulder as he looked through the data and the specifications of the suit. "Notes, main transducer feels sluggish at plus forty altitude." He announced, groaning from the pain a little, which only made his daughter smile. "Hull pressurisation problematic. I'm thinking icing is the probably factor."
"A very astute observation, Sir. Perhaps, if you intend to visit other planets, we should improve the exosystems." JARVIS replied with a certain cheek in his voice. Ruby was pleased that he had picked up on some of the sarcasm that SWAIN had, and that it was being used against her father.
Tony simply ignored the comment from his AI, and the slight snort of a laughter from his daughter. "Connect to the Cisco, hive it reconfigure the shell metals. Use the gold titanium allot from the seraphim tactical satellite. That should ensure fuselage integrity with maintaining power-to-weight ration. Got it?"
"Yes. Shall I render using proposed specifications?"
The man shrugged a little "Thrill me." He called to his AI, before turning to face his daughter. "So, what do you think?" Tony asked her, hoping to get some kind of approval from her. Ruby had been sitting there quietly, not saying a work but making small gestures that generally showed a hint of disapproval or annoyance.
"I think you were stupid to try and reach that height, especially on an impulsive test flight like that." Ruby told him, making sure he knew that she was unhappy. "Sometimes you really make me question if you actually have a brain or not." She said, before going on plonking herself on the couch down in the workshop, turning the television on.
"Tonight's red-hot carpet is right here at the Disney Concert Hall, where Tony Stark's third annual benefit has become the place to be for L.A.'s high society." The woman on the screen said, causing both Ruby and Tony to frown. Ruby knew all about the event, and was a little confused as to why her father was sitting there instead of being at his own party.
It seemed the Tony had similar thoughts. "JARVIS, we get an invite for that?" He asked, getting up from his desk and walking over to where Ruby was sitting.
"I have no record of an invitation for either of you, sir."
Tony frowned even more at the response as he let his eyes fall back to the screen with his daughter. "…hasn't been seen in public since his bizarre and highly controversial press conference. Some claim he's suffering posttraumatic stress and has been bed ridden for weeks. There have also been claims that his daughter has left the country to escape the media and the chaos that her father has brought to her life. Whatever the case may be, no one expects an appearance from either of them tonight."
Both Tony and Ruby were absolutely fuming. All of Ruby's anger and hostility towards her father and his unscheduled test flight had now completely left her mind. Now she was focusing on the trash that people were saying about her, about her life and her family.
Before either of them had a chance to speak, JARVIS was talking. "The render is complete." He announced, causing Tony to walk about over to his desk and look at the screen.
He saw the image of the suit, looking like it was made of pure gold. "A little ostentatious, don't you think?" Tony remarked, thinking it just looked a little too gold.
"What was I thinking?" JARVIS called, making Ruby roll her eyes as she wandered over to the desk as well after shutting off the television. "You're usually so discreet."
Ruby chuckled at that sarcastic comment from the AI while Tony turned and looked at her. As he did, his eyes caught sight of one of his cars. "Tell you what, throw a little hot-rod red in there."
If JARVIS could, he would have rolled his eyes. "Yes, that should help you keep a low profile. The render is complete."
Both Tony and Ruby looked at the screen, Tony more impressed with what he was seeing than his daughter. She wasn't big on the red and gold look, it was just too loud in her opinion. "Hey, I like it. Fabricate it, paint it." Her father announced, causing her to let out a slight sigh.
"Commencing automated assembly. Estimated complete time is five hours."
Tony turned and looked at his daughter. She definitely looked better, and she seemed to be back to her rebellious teenage self once more. "Right, how you feeling now then, honey? And don't give me none of this 'fine' business. I want a proper answer."
"Fever has gone, and I've not been throwing up. Been having a few slight headaches, hence the reason why I am wearing the glasses. I'm not tired, I don't feel like I'm going to just drop at any moment." Ruby told him, sounding rather bored. The truth was, she was still thinking about what that woman had said on the television, she really hadn't liked that at all.
Her father looked at her carefully, before he reached out and put his hand on her fore head for a few moments. "Okay, fine. Go get yourself all dressed up, we have a party to crash."
Ruby frowned at him. "Excuse me?"
"Really? Ruby, they didn't even invite us to our own party. I mean, unless you want to just sit here and let them get away with it all? Want the world to think that you've run away?" He knew that would strike a chord with his daughter, because he knew she wasn't one to simply run away from anything.
"Give me twenty minutes." She called, running up the stairs and to her bedroom. He was right, neither of them were going to let anyone get away with something like that. It wasn't right what they were saying about her father, and she didn't like what they were saying about her either, and the best way to prove them all wrong was to show up. They would go to that party and stun everyone there, and hopefully stop those rumours that kept flying around about them both. Ruby had really had enough of the press and the rubbish that they were saying now, and she was going to help her father put a stop to it all.
A/N: Well, I hope that you enjoyed it. I'm trying to move the story along now, there s still much more to get through, and I don't just mean with the movie plot.
Big hello and welcome to all the new favourites and follows on this story, I smile when I find out there are new readers out there enjoying it. Also, an absolutely massive thank you, with extra hugs and cherries, to those few who take the time to leave a review.
A quick little question here, do I make this all one great big story, or do I split it up for the different movies it covers? In other words, do you think I should start a new story when it gets to Iron Man 2? Give me your opinions.
Well, that's all for today, folks. Until the next time!
Pippa.